The south-of-the-border brand of Catholicism does tend to be more mystical and just different than up north. I am generally respectful. Many of these spiritual events mean night parades of lights and other fun events, but these Jesus and Virgin Mary sightings that seem to happen about every month get ridiculous. “I baked Jesus in a tortilla.” Or “your porch lights make an image of the Virgin Mary.”
Then someone goes to a priest to get an official miracle sanction, which the priest respectfully comments on it (while he is likely laughing his ass off in silence).
How is the virgin Mary appearing in cracked glass a miracle. It is all quite ridiculous.
People will see what they need to see. There are quite a lot of Elvis and Mickey Mouse sitings. It’s just nobody goes into religious ecstasy over them. Well, maybe about Elvis.
What I’ve always wondered is how these people know it’s Mary or Jesus, given that we don’t really know what they looked like. The face they see in the cracked glass could be Atilla the Hun for all they know.
A couple years ago, I lived in Clearwater, Florida. About two blocks down from my apartment complex was a large glass building that was owned by some finance company. Evidently, their was some sort of water stain on the front of this building that had been there for quite some time. The property owners decided to remove two rather large palm trees near the entrance, thereby uncovering this stain. Some nimrod said to some other nimrod that they thought that the stain resembled the Virgin Mary. Within a week, hundreds of morons from all over the country were flooding this parking lot to leave flowers, say their prayers, and basically worship this giant discoloration. Soon, the pedestrian traffic got so bad that they needed to install a second traffic light, not 150 feet from the traffic light at a MAJOR intersection (six lane highway meets four lane major road). The gas station on the corner loved it, and began selling T-shirts and other “Virgin Mary” memorabilia. Local radio stations had a blast with promotions, including one in which the “winner” got to lose their virginity in a hotel across the street. This all happened right around Christmas time, and it was a mess for months! I wanted to run those fucking people over. “YOU TRAVELLED HUNDREDS OF MILES TO WORSHIP A STAIN!! MORON!!”
From ABC News:
"Clearwater police say the crowds that have gathered to see an apparition of the Virgin Mary show no signs of slowing down, despite the cold. Thousands of people have turned out at the Seminole Finance building at U-S 19 and Drew Street since Wednesday. What looks like an outline of the Virgin Mary has appeared on the side of the building. The city of Clearwater has set up a special hotline to answer questions about parking and traffic. That phone number is (813) 562-4400.
The faithful have numbered 450,000–4.5 times the city’s population–over the three weeks since the image was first noticed. And a city report put the tab at $40,000 to deploy police to handle the crowds and direct traffic. The city will remove portable bathrooms and mobile police and fire command posts."
God, just reading over this stuff has pissed me off all over again!! Every morning on the way to work…aaaarrrgggghhh!!! I wanted to put a big rock through it! Fucking idiots…
“It is only out of sheer, morbid curiosity that I am allowing this freakshow to continue…”
That reminded me of the Daily Show’s comments about that event. They made a comment about how it’s no surprise that the Virgin Mary would appear in Florida when she did:
“Where else would you find a 2000 year old Jewish woman in the middle of winter?”
Gypsy: Tom, I don’t get you. Tom Servo: Nobody does. I’m the wind, baby.
I was going to scoff, but then I followed the link and saw the pictures! Those idiots who think they see Mary are just deluded by their religious devotion. It’s obviously an image of Elvis wearing a wimple. Anyone can see that.
Someone in my hometown once saw the face of Jesus in the frost patterns in his freezer. Unfortunately, it was an auto-defrost freezer, so no lucrative tourist trade sprung up.
An infinite number of rednecks in an infinite number of pickup trucks shooting an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of road signs will eventually produce all the world’s great works of literature in Braille.
Does anyone know . . . do Hindus see Vishnu in their vindaloo? Do Buddhists discern the Englightened One in the scales of a carp? And does Mohammed appear in the folds of a kaffiyah?
Not that I know of, but the names of Allah and of the Prophet and the opening words of the Koran appear from time to time in the seeds of an aubergine (eggplant) or tomato, when it is sliced open.
This seems to be quite a common occurrance in England: there’s a story in the papers two or three times a year.